A Rural Blog that provides views & insights from a Conservative Georgia Democrat

Monday, March 14, 2011

Georgians Voting in their Best Interest or Against it?

Ahhhh........The South! What can I say here about my region of the United States? I love my home. The Southern state of Georgia, the Peach State, the Empire State of the South. As I mentioned before, something just continue to baffle me : Why & I really mean this, but Why despite our conservative tendencies do many of my rural low-income residents continue to give the republicans the benefit of the doubt when election season rolls around every two, four, six years?

The Republican Party has been promoting a series of policies that hurt residents of rural Georgians very badly. While voters are more likely to vote Republican now than they did ten years ago, in farm communities and small towns, the Republican Party has been supporting a whole series of actions and policies that go against the interests of these voters.

The push by Deal & the Republicans to cut Hope drastically, which will no doubt affect rural students, shift Georgia's Tax burden on Low income & middle class families while at the same time continue to give deep tax cuts to Corporations & their special interest cronies. Hey, they got to pay for those tax cuts & the way to do it is to make low-income, middle class families pay more than they should. But somehow they manage to get away with it because of...........well.....not substance, but because they are masters of marketing & packaging what they are selling to the general public. The present this big 'ol gift ,which looks so attractive to the average Georgia voter that eventually they will buy into. By the time the average Georgia Voter realize that they were played, fooled, conned that its too late for anyone to do anything about it until the next election season rolls around.

Poverty here in Rural Georgia is very real. . The vast majority of rural Georgians are poor and middle class people. Republican policies are biased against the rural folk. It is time for rural Georgians to start voting for candidates who will support policies that benefit rural Georgia instead of hurting rural Georgia.

Despite what I hear, I don't know that rural Georgians are really upset by 'reckless spending.' The Blue Dogs like Jim Marshall who lost his bid for re-election were convinced that this is the case, but the most popular Republicans here in Georgia are known for their ability to bring home the bacon like Jack Kingston, who haven't done squat to improve the 1st Congressional District, but his ability to bring home the pork has kept him in office this long despite the district's high poverty & lack of jobs. On the other hand, maybe saturation exposure to Fox News and talk radio is turning Southern states like Georgia into a place that not only hates the federal government but their money, too.

I do think it's true that rural Georgians are convinced that the Atlanta/Urban elites don't respect their social values and culture. And, the more urban the Democratic Party becomes, the stronger the sense of estrangement can become.

I am more interested in how rural, conservative Georgia Democrats can win by genuinely differing from the national party. And I don't mean on social issues, because they are doing that already and it either isn't working or it is insufficient. I think it would be nice if a Georgia Democrat could say, "Hey, I'm nothing like the National Democrats who's values are not in line of that with of Georgia Values.

Like Democratic Strategist David "Mudcat" Saunders said: If urban areas tend to go Democrat and suburban/exurban areas go Republican, “The swing vote is what’s left, and it lives in rural areas,” Saunders says. “These people have been voting Republican, but they’re not really Republicans, and we need to show ‘em why.”

It’s unbelievable that Democrats can’t figure out that what rural folks are really worried about is financial security, healthcare and jobs, that Daddy’s got to get a second job and how they're getting Hank Jr to the dentist. Now what democrats need to do in order to flip working class voters back to the Georgia Democratic Party is they must be convinced that the Democrats’ economic policies are better for them personally than the Republican policies.

You see some republicans have defined the democratic party as the party for blacks only. The Republicans set up, and used very well, (portraying blacks as lazy, ignorant people, who hate work, only want to live off government handouts. The Republicans knew that white Southerns would flock to them in droves using this sorry bogus strategy.